


Couldn't Leave You Alone

by SerStolas



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 15:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11717277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerStolas/pseuds/SerStolas
Summary: Finn's been missing for months, declared KIA.  But Poe can't accept that.  He accepts that Finn is missing, but he refuses to accept that his fiance is dead.





	Couldn't Leave You Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Star Wars belongs to Disney/Lucas Arts
> 
> Find me on tumblr nytemere.tumblr.com
> 
> I was supposed to be writing a chapter for my role reversal AU today...I wrote this instead.

Six months, 2 weeks, 5 days, and some odd hours.

Poe stared blankly at the number of lines he'd drawn on the board that hung in the room he'd once shared with Finn, counting each and every day since Finn had gone missing on a mission with another Pathfinder.

Every shred of intelligence, every sign, every lead they found lead to a dead end. After weeks of searching after their initial disappearance, the General had been forced to call off the search. They were fighting too many battles on too many fronts to be able to allocate the kind of resources it might take to actually find Finn and Thmei. 

Over the past six plus months, Poe had forced himself through the every day, despite the hollowness he felt without Finn. He missed Finn, he desperately wanted to believe his fiance was still alive, but Poe had been in this war too long to let that hope interfere with his ability to pilot for the Resistance.

He'd flown countless missions since then, and every time come home to an empty bunk. The room slowly lost the scent of Finn's cologne, though every once in awhile when Poe opened one of the drawers of their shared dresser he might catch a whiff. 

He hated this, hated the emptiness that had taken residence in his soul since the loss of Finn.

Losing friends in the Republic and later the Resistance had been tough. Losing Muran had been heart wrenching. Losing Finn had damn near killed some part of Poe.

He and Black Squadron had another run in the morning, and he had to get some sleep if he was going to be fit for flight tomorrow. Poe's eyes flickered over to the bottle of pills from medical that sat near his bed. 

He hated to admit how often he needed help sleeping these days. Jess had to damn near drag him to medical when she'd found him working on his X-Wing at three in the morning after almost 96 hours without sleep. That had been three months after Finn's disappearance. 

Even though Finn and Thmei were listed officially as KIA, Poe preferred to think of them as MIA. He felt that as long as he refused to accept that Finn might be dead, then there was still a chance they might find Finn, or that Finn might find a way back. Nothing short of capture and impossibility of escape would have kept Finn away from him.

So he held onto his hope, quietly in his own heart. 

He also steadfastly refused to talk about the possibility that Finn might be dead. While his friends might occasionally worry about it, thus far they had accepted this fact.

But then Poe had also noticed that Rey also refused to accept that Finn might be dead, and it gave him hope. While Luke Skywalker and Rey weren't often on base, too often off on missions tracking down Knights of Ren or artifacts that the First Order was trying to find first, when she was, she would join Poe in the mess during meals, or during various gatherings. The first time that someone had mentioned a possible memorial for Finn, she'd nearly snapped their head off.

The subject hadn't been brought up again.  
All these thoughts whirled in Poe's head as he pulled the bottle off the shelf and opened it, letting two pills fall into his hands. At least with the pills, he didn't dream. In the earlier days, he had thought about the endlessness of a never ending sleep, but Poe knew Finn never would have wanted that for him. Finn would want him to keep fighting.

So he did.

Poe carefully down the pills with a glass of water and set the empty glass gently on the bedside table before shutting off the light and sliding into bed. In the darkness he could see BB-8 on their charging port, glowing a faint orange.

He turned his eyes back towards the ceiling, waiting for the familiar feeling of his eyes growing heavy, and finally, after another eternity, drifting off to sleep. In the morning he would awaken, again, and wipe tears from his eyes at the empty space beside him, but for tonight, he would sleep, if only for a few hours.

~~

When BB-8 woke Poe up the next morning, he ran through the usual motions of dressing before a mission, grabbing caf to fully awake himself up, and then followed the path to the hanger and his X-Wing.

As he ran through the pre-flight check, he noted his squadron doing the same. With any luck, this would be a routine op, a two day check in the neighboring system to ensure they didn't find any signs of First Order ships, and then back home.

It was easier to pretend on missions that he wouldn't be coming home to an empty bunk, an empty bed. For the length of a mission, Poe could focus solely on the task at hand. If anyone had noticed the increased number of missions he volunteered for since Finn had vanished, they didn't talk about it when he was around. Unlike the first month after the searches had been called off, Poe wasn't deliberately working himself to exhaustion. He'd figured out he was no good to anyone that way.

So they let him have his extra missions, tolerated his refusal to put anything up on the memorial wall for Finn, and tolerated his refusal to accept that Finn was gone. They let him have it for now at least. 

Poe wondered when they would stop humoring him. Eventually, his mind told him, but not yet. Maybe it was because Rey refused to give up.

When they were finally in the air, then slipping through hyperspace, Poe let himself get lost in mission, in the majesty of space that surrounded them. He could understand why his mother had loved this so much. When you were surrounded by the beauty of the stars, sometimes it was easier to accept your grief, to not let it consume you.

For once, everything did go to plan, and two days later, they were heading back to base, opening their comms to hail the tower.

“Black Leader, your squadron will need to land on the ancillary runway,” Connic's voice came crackling over the radio as they approached atmo.

“Any particular reason?” Testor's voice called back over the comms before Poe found his own voice, wondering at the odd order.

“Transports on the main runway,” Connic explained. “It would appear we have additional First Order defectors, several hundred, actually. Captain Finn's story spread among them. There's a fair number of causalities among them, and they had to set up emergency in-processing on the runway way we scramble to find quarters for those we clear.”

“Well that's good news,” Poe found himself saying. It would probably take days for Command to sort through all the would-be defectors and determine how many were sincere and how many were potential moles.

It made his heart hurt, though, that Finn wasn't there to see this. He closed his eyes for a moment as he answered. “Black Squadron will land on the ancillary runway. Black Leader out.”

He felt his head pounding as they entered atmo and eventually brought their X-Wings to a halt on the runway. He and the other pilots clambered out of their cockpits. They would need to give debrief, but everyone was curious about this new development. Poe jogged after his fellow pilots, though perhaps not as quickly. 

The whole thing brought back memories of how he'd originally met Finn, there on the Finalizer, and the moment that Finn removed his helmet and Poe lost his heart. It took them both months after that to figure out they both wanted each other, but between that time and Finn's disappearance had been the best time of Poe's life.

As he came up behind Testor, Snap, and Bastian, he found himself looking at a small sea of Storm troopers in careful lines, ranging from kids to adults, standing at attention, waiting for their turn through in-processing.

Yes, Finn would have loved this sight, Poe thought sadly.

A storm trooper perhaps Finn's own age stood to one side, talking with an officer, watching the in-processing. The woman happened to look up, dark brown bangs falling over bronzed colored skin, when she saw Poe and the other pilots. Something in her face lit up, and Poe saw an honest to Force smile flicker over her lips. She murmured something to the officer who glanced over and saw Black Squadron. A similar smile flickered over the Zabrak's face and he nodded.

No one stopped her when the Storm trooper marched towards the pilots and gave them a smart salute.

“SK-2257 reporting. May I ask which of you is Commander Dameron?” she asked.

Testor and Snap exchanged a glance and parted to let Poe step up. Poe blinked, regarding the woman's steady gray eyes. “I'm Commander Dameron,” he replied,

SK-2257 maintained that bright smile when she saw him. “Thank you, Sir,” she addressed him. “I have to thank you, Commander Dameron, on behalf of all of us, for inspiring Finn, formerly FN-2187 for defecting. Without the story of the two of you, none of us would have worked up the courage to do this.” She glanced for a moment towards the line of Storm troopers and lowered her voice.

“I have also been ordered by General Organa to inform you that Captain Finn is in the med bay, along with Lieutenant Thmei. His condition is more series that the Lieutenant's but the doctors have assured us he will pull through.”

Poe stared at her, frozen for a moment in shock. SK considered his expression before she continued.

“The Captain and Lieutenant were captures several months ago by the Order and eventually transferred to our facility. No one told us who the prisoners were, other than Resistance personnel. I am not sure what they did but...I was on guard duty, one night, after they brought him back from interrogation. I heard one of the others call him by his old designation, and then I knew...I knew we could not let this continue.”

“So you lead a revolt?” Jess prompted, her eyes wide as she looked over Poe's head at Snap.

“As well as we could,” SK replied. “It was a smaller facility, and there have been rumors for the past few years ago the Storm trooper who managed to break conditioning and defect. It...it was very inspiring. Those you see here are the ones that survived the revolt. We broke the two other prisoners who were still alive out, and now those four are in medical.”

“Thank you, SK, I-,” Poe finally found his voice, feeling his fingers lose grip on his helmet. “I have to go.”

He heard Snap and Jess murmuring thanks to the woman as well, and Jess muttering about finding all of these former troopers decent names, as Poe took off across the base towards medical.

He was almost surprised no one stopped him as he tore through base and down right flew through the doors of the medical wing, his eyes wide, hopeful, as he glanced around.

Dr. Kalonia herself met him in the hall.

“Commander Dameron, good to see you made it back safely. If you will follow me, I'll take you to Finn,” she said in a calm tone, as if this sort of thing happened every day. Poe had no idea how she kept her composure.

He could focus only on the hear and now, only briefly taking note of the room number as Kalonia lead him inside a private room, the soft beep of medical equipment filling their ears as the door shut behind them.

“Finn, you have a visitor,” Kalonia said in a soft voice.

There, lying on the bed, covered in bandages and bacta patches, was the most beautiful sight Poe had ever seen. Tears flowing unchecked from his eyes, he stumbled towards the seat beside the bed and sat down, reaching out blindly as Finn's lovely brown eyes flickered open, and a smile flickered over his features.

“Poe,” Finn said in a gravely voice.

“Here, buddy, always,” Poe replied, his own voice breaking as he felt Finn's fingers curl around his own for the first time in months.

Kalonia left the two of them alone after an admonishment to Finn not to get out of bed.

Poe didn't know how long he sat there, tears sliding down his cheeks, staring at Finn.

“Oh Force, Finn, you're alive,” he whispered.

“Couldn't...leave..you alone,” Finn replied softly. He coughed then and Poe shook his head.

“Don't try to talk if it hurts,” Poe replied. “It's enough you're here, you're back.”

“Love..you,” Finn managed.

Poe's lips curled into his first smile in months. “I love you too, Finn.”


End file.
